Cupid Should Take Notes

My husband got me pens for Valentine's Day. Seven nondescript ballpoint pens. A lifetime supply of pens for this stubbornly digital, phone in hand, kind of girl. Pens, as you know, are the antithesis of romance, and though they came packaged in a wooden box he stained himself, with the requisite card (more on that later) and a bar of my favorite dark chocolate to be stashed away in the freezer for later emergencies, I can't quite get over the idea of pens as a Valentine's gift.

I kind of want to feel offended. But I can't, and I won't, because I know that each quirky part of his bizarre, but personal expression of love reflects the reasons why I married him and we enjoy a happy marriage.

You see, I (not so) secretly love office supplies. Sharpies, notebooks, a new box of crayons... My heart is always a flutter during back to school season. I haven't bought pens in awhile because, well, I'm a stay at homeschool mom. My current favorite medium is ultra-washable Crayola markers. I've got a pen or two that I like and have managed to not lose, so I'm pretty much set in the ink department. But my love knows that I adore the practical and I know that he actually stood in front of a pen display testing each one until he found the clearest, smoothest writing. Because he loves me. And when I'm using one of these pens, to write a check to pay a bill (can't use washable markers for that!) or jot down a grocery list, I can be doubly appreciative, not just for a pen, but for a husband who works hard to provide for us so I can do things like pay our bills and buy food for my always hungry kiddos.

In my new wooden box, I'll keep my Valentine's cards, the ones purchased from the Dollar Tree and translated from Spanish to English. The very first note Matthew wrote me, way back when we were college freshman, was in Spanish. After graciously explaining that "uhm, I'm Japanese" he translated with what I assume was flawless accuracy. So even though he picked this card because the message was very sweet, it still reminds me of that funny, romantic moment stolen away in the UCF Student Union almost half a lifetime ago.

And as for the chocolate, well, chocolate is almost impossible to get wrong. I'll be saving that for a day when our two biggest blessings drive me to it.

I love that my husband is thoughtful. He's creative. He is true to himself. He is patient with me when I'm grouchy, and he gives me time to figure out why it's okay to get a box of pens when everyone else is getting jewelry and teddy bears. He remembers details from so many years ago, when our love was new, and finds a way to keep them going. I love him lots, and I'm glad he's mine.

This is a better answer to that question you asked me...

I took The Bug to a birthday party on Saturday. When it comes to parties, I'm kind of a socially awkward penguin; my Facebook friends list is like an elaborate Venn diagram, petals of different friend groups: work friends, church friends, old church friends, homeschool mamas, preschool mamas, fellow Harry Potter fans... with a few overlaps here and there. But I can usually make friendly mom-chat with one or two of the other women balancing plastic cups and paper plates near the veggie tray. (Why are they never near the chips?)   

Sometimes this person is my child. I'm not a helicopter mom, I'm just awkward.

But a strange thing happened at this party on Saturday. Sometime during this small come-in-your-costume, Halloween-themed birthday party I progressed from socially awkward penguin to outsider. As the girls ate pizza and assembled crafts (wearing Elsa and Anna costumes, because every party is a Frozen party whether you want it to be or not), I listened to three other mamas commiserate about fundraisers, teacher communication, sight word tests and privacy folders, school cafeteria woes and car line. I had nothing to add. The Bug has never taken a test. She's the only student. We can make authentic, formative assessments as we go. And then as an afterthought, or maybe out of pity, came the question: How's the homeschooling going?

If I was articulate, I could have described just how much I love it. 

How we get two whole mornings a week to wake up slowly and learn in our pajamas if we feel like it. How my children and I begin each school day with a few minutes of praying and memorizing scripture together and how for the past two weeks I've been trying to get The Bug to remember that not every verse ends with "will not perish, but have eternal life." 

I could have said what a joy it is to get beautifully written letters from my child that she creates of her own volition because she is so excited to use the new words she has learned. I could have beamed with pride over the progress we've made in reading; how I've watched this skill that my daughter will carry with her for the rest of her life begin to blossom and grow as we sit side by side on the couch. 

I could have explained all the things I have learned as we complete science projects together almost daily, and how we are beginning to bring the world to life one country at a time as we study geography. I could have expressed how my heart leaps to hear my daughter sing praises to Jesus as she works standing up at the table to complete her math assignment. 

I could have described how bone-weary exhaustion fades away in the evening when I set out materials for the next day and begin to anticipate what we will learn together. I could have expressed that I am greedily and gleefully storing up hours with my children because, as The Bug in her wisdom pointed out last week at Publix, "time is slow, but fast" and I will not get these years back. 

But I am not articulate.

I tried to explain, but the words just tripped clumsily over each other, something about how much fun we have and how fast the year is going... I made homeschooling sound lame. And I think by the time I was finished stuttering out a response we just felt mutually sorry for each other, the other mamas wondering how I can possibly teach anything through my ineptitude, and me feeling sad that they buy into the belief that homeschooling is only for the brave, crazy, or qualified. (Personally, I feel like you must possess at least a little of all of these qualities, but these are thoughts for another post.)

So by way of correction, let me say it here: Homeschooling isn't lame. I've been tagging our pictures and YouTube uploads with #weirdhomeschoolers ironically. And honestly, we are a little weird, but only in the most charming way. There's no doubt that homeschooling has become more mainstream since my husband and his siblings were homeschooled in the 1980s, but it's sorta sad that I'm still having to explain to strangers that my child is not skipping school and to friends that I'm not robbing my child of opportunities to become properly socialized. 

We've got about thirty reasons why we homeschool, but the main reason is that after prayerful consideration we felt that this is where God is leading our family. I can't always come up with an on-the-spot answer to "How's the homeschooling going?" but now that I've found time to sit down and think about it, it's going pretty darn great. Thanks for asking. Next time you ask, stand near the chips. Junk food helps me think clearly.

What's the Opposite of a Waste of Time?

Today was… a day. It started with me dragging a groggy five going-on-fifteen year old out of bed to get ready for Bible Study Fellowship. (If you've ever attended Bible Study Fellowship, the running gag is that you started going to get someone to stop harassing you about trying it. Personally, I go because I get to see my mom and there’s usually lunch involved afterwards. And also, it’s a challenging, in-depth study of God’s word and they have a great kids program. And again, I get out of preparing lunch.)

So after I finally get both of my kids in the upright position with breakfast in front of them (multigrain cheerios ‘cause I’m MOM OF THE YEAR. But please, hold your applause...) I make a foolhardy attempt to leave the room to apply a teensy bit of makeup to the bags under my eyes and lament the death of my hairdryer as I wrestle my hopeless hair into half a ponytail. As I begin the pre-church-event pep talk (God doesn't care what we look like, it doesn't matter what people think, etc.) I’m interrupted by shouts from my two-year-old, admonishing the dog for stealing all of his O’s. He gets a peanut butter, chocolate chip granola bar as a replacement breakfast. (Seriously, where do I pick up my trophy?) Then I explain to my five-year-old that cheerios aren't a food we eat individually, please put MORE THAN ONE ON THE SPOON BECAUSE WE HAVE TO LEAVE IN 10 MINUTES AND MOMMY IS LOUD BECAUSE SHE LOVES YOU AND DOESN'T WANT YOU TO BE HUNGRY OR THE ONLY KID WEARING PAJAMAS TO BIBLE STUDY.

Deep breath.

Make coffee.

Spend 10 minutes getting kids dressed, brushed, shoed, and ushered into the car with toys for them to fuss over and then realize while sitting in middle school drop off traffic (thank God I don’t work anymore?) that the coffee is sitting in a pretty Polish pottery mug on the Keurig.

SIGH.

The best part of BSF is that I get to drop off the kids in a loving, safe environment where they have fun singing hymns and learning the same Bible lessons that I do. I get to refocus my crazy day with two songs and a prayer, and spend time in fellowship with other women who have been learning about the amazing beginning to the life of Moses throughout the week. I get to listen to a teacher clarify what we've studied and apply it to our lives. And when I pick my kids up, I’m not loud-mommy anymore.

I got to read this while I was getting my car washed last week.  That's a big deal.

I had a headache all day.  It would have been easier to stay home, put Netflix on and start unofficial pajama day at school around 11 am after my mid-morning fika. But if you watch the news at all, you’ll realize what a BIG, GIANT, ENORMOUS deal it is that we live where we can publicly meet fellow believers with Bibles in hand to freely worship God. It isn't something I can take for granted. If you’re interested in trying a Bible study, you can check out their website, or let me know. I might even buy you lunch. 

Even better

Everyone keeps saying the first year of homeschooling is the hardest. Maybe it will be. But for now it's downright delightful. I haven't quite figured out how to keep The Bean busy (safely) in a way that doesn't involve binge watching Batman, but we've had a couple of surprising moments where he's sat contented at his Lego table while I work with The Bug.

Breakfast of champions. We've eaten a lot of doughnuts since I started blogging.

I went to Walmart to buy this.  That's LOVE.

The Bean gets to participate too.

The entire student body.

I'm also still nervous that our curriculum isn't rigorous enough, but then I have a bit of chocolate and remind myself that my kitchen table is a safe haven from meaningless common core buzzwords. Sure, our first week was a bit of review. The Bug got a pretty good head start in VPK last year, and even in public schools they don't jump into challenging new material right away. We are at least saved from having to teach classroom management guidelines: she already knows where the bathroom is, she works with a bottle of water right at her seat, and doesn't have to worry about finding the right bus to get home because she's already there. Besides a slower first week gives us the flexibility to set up our day and see which routines work for us without the pressure of having to get to all the very-very-important-things-right-now.

Our delight-driven curriculum is a lot of "create as you go."

So this week we've been using the LifeWay devotionals provided by our church to start our morning. We pray and update our calendar and then practice our memory verse (Psalms 119:11). We created a prayer lapbook and talked about when and where to pray and who and what we can pray for. We've got a Books of the Bible lapbook in progress to learn about the Old and New Testaments and how to use scripture references to actually find things in the Bible. We'll try to memorize the order of the books (using the "right song" from Matthew's childhood via YouTube) which is something I failed to do as a child.  I did however master the slow page flip which is good for searching without looking totally clueless.

We've done a Pop Bottle Science experiment everyday. A la Sid the Science Kid, she's drawn the experiment in a journal and then dictated the process step-by-step for me to write down. She's suddenly seeing molecules everywhere and I learned that a cup of rubbing alcohol added to a cup of water takes up less space than two cups of water. (I also need to buy more rubbing alcohol.) We took a field trip to the zoo which I failed to document because it was SO INCREDIBLY HOT OUTSIDE and all I could think about was getting donuts after we finished sweating off every last vestige of body fat.

See? It was educational!

I swear we learned stuff even if I just took pictures of them being cute.

We reviewed phonemic sounds and writing letters A-X in preparation for beginning reading lessons next week. We checked out 30+ books from the library, including two on The Bug's very own card, with no discernible theme except that the kids seem to like them. We've read the first two chapters of Little House in the Big Woods and pondered life before electricity ("but how did they watch TV?!?") and made ourselves a Lincoln Log cabin, a wonky little rag doll named Emma, fresh homemade bread, and "churned" sweet cream butter. 

Emma!

Our tasty little loaf of bread! 

We created a passport and started learning about our world: the names of continents and the cardinal directions. She's learned how to log on to Little Passports and play some of the games, though she still needs help reading the questions. We've read about four of our seven continents and made corresponding crafts and dinners based on the least offensive stereotypes I could find. The Bug can find them on a map and knows her cardinal directions. 

Learning about Asia

Learning about Europe.

Creating necklaces for Africa.

A Mexican sombrero for North America. 

We've made math as hands on as possible with collecting and sorting and classifying shapes, colors, objects, and sizes. We've worked on sequencing and ordinal numbers and competed two weeks of worksheets in our first five days and blazed through three "chapters" of Brain Quest worksheets during week two.  (Really, matching?  How does this count as math?)

But my very favorite had been starting her memory book, a way to document the wonderful person she is as we begin this school year.

For the most part I feel pretty good.  Exhausted and doubtful of whether I'm doing enough and doing it right, but we're having fun. My kiddo is asking to do school work and enjoying most of what we do together. It feels small, these little lessons, for just a few hours one day at a time, but I'm trusting someone much bigger to bring it all together. Today I'm enjoying the kids and this adventure which is even better than I had hoped for.

So Long Summer

As a kid I could always count on two nights a year when I would get no sleep: Christmas Eve and the night before the first day of school. Now that we’re a homeschooling family (we had orientation this week so it’s official), I've been looking for ways to make start of our school year extra special for my own kiddos.

Even though I still feel a certain amount of freedom that comes with doing school at home, I still felt like this was our last week to squeeze in some summer fun. We had an impromptu library trip and picnic with our neighbors and spent the day at SeaWorld with my mom. 

Grammy is the best teaching assistant. Also, it was brutally hot... how does she always stay so put together?

This kid loves whales.

Not so put together. But The Bug is beautiful.

That's my daughter, hugging the KILLER whale. 

To celebrate the end of summer we hosted a Back-to-School Party for The Bug and some of her friends.  We've been blessed to be part of the First Years Preschool at our church for the past two years, but kindergarten means our friends will be going in different directions. We ate lunch and played a few Minute to Win It style games, all courtesy of my friend Pinterest. All in all it was a nice opportunity for The Bug to play with her friends and for the moms to sit and catch up before we get back into a busy school routine.

Invitations courtesy of Pinterest.

We used our new school supplies as decorations.

I painted the box to hold our favors (which is impressive because when I draw apples they usually look like tomatoes) and made pencil shaped boxes (again, Pinterest) and filled them with Smarties for the kids.  The moms got lunch box notes (Pinterest, see the theme?) to use for their kiddos.

Lemonade and fresh apples. You know, for the teacher.

 

Managed to fit all seven kids around my table.

Apple plates! Do the cups look like chalkboards? I hope so.

School lunch: PB&J, Cheetos, applesauce, and string cheese.

And cupcakes, of course.

The games were so fun to watch, especially as five-year-olds raced to eat a donut hanging from a string, but my phone was playing DJ so pictures of the actual party will have to wait until they get emailed to me. The Bug loved it though, declaring that throwing parties are her favorite part of school.  Who says homeschooled kids aren't socialized?

EDIT: I got a few pictures of our party guests! No game pictures yet, but that's what happens when (a) they only take a minute to play, and (b) the moms are too busy laughing/cheering on their kids.

Hey there, Samantha! How do you like that apple plate?

And that's a McCutchen face.

And now, with lessons planned and resources organized and printed, I feel like we're ready to start the year.  I'm excited about the opportunities ahead and the time I'll get to spend with The Bug and The Bean. So long summer, this teaching mom is ready for the school year!